Path cleared for deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to return to power

By Tracy Wilkinson and Paul Richter

Oct. 31, 2009 12 AM PT

MEXICO CITY AND WASHINGTON — In the end, it took direct, explicit U.S. pressure to force the de facto government of Honduras to reverse the position it had stubbornly clung to for nearly four months and agree to a deal that could reinstate deposed President Manuel Zelaya.

The agreement does not automatically put Zelaya back in office, and given the erratic and sometimes contradictory behavior of the principal players in the Honduran drama, no outcome is certain.

But both sides applauded the deal Friday and said it signaled a possible end to the crisis that has isolated and divided the impoverished Central American country since a military-backed coup ousted Zelaya on June 28.

Zelaya, a timber tycoon whose turn to the political left alienated Honduras’ ultra-conservative elite, was ousted after ignoring a court order to stop efforts to revise the Honduran Constitution. His critics contended that he was attempting to extend his time in power, a charge he has denied.

The military grabbed him from his home at dawn and deported him to Costa Rica. He sneaked back into the country Sept. 21 and took refuge in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, where he has remained, the compound surrounded by Honduran troops.

Zelaya’s removal from office has been viewed worldwide as one of the most serious challenges to face Latin America in a decade. The coup was both a throwback to the region’s dark past of civil war and military takeover and emblematic of a struggle underway today in Central and South America, where several leftist leaders with authoritarian tendencies have risen to power through elections and tested the bounds of democracy.

The de facto government saw the agreement as the only way to ensure international recognition of elections scheduled for one month from now, officials said.

Leaders around the globe also voiced approval. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton praised the “historic agreement” and said she was “very proud” that the U.S. was “instrumental in the process.”

Under the agreement, the Honduran Congress, following a “consultation” with the Supreme Court, will vote on whether Zelaya should be reinstated, which would allow him to serve out the rest of his term, which ends in January.

The court and Congress previously endorsed the coup. Still, Zelaya expressed confidence Friday that Congress would vote in his favor, and his supporters poured into the streets in celebration.

Roberto Micheletti, the de facto president who replaced Zelaya, is making the opposite calculation and believes the Congress will decide against letting Zelaya return to office, said people close to Micheletti. He told a television interviewer Friday that “it is not a certainty” that Zelaya will be reinstated.

Pressure to end the crisis has mounted in recent weeks from several sources, including the powerful Honduran business elite, which backed the coup but has been losing millions of dollars because of sanctions and interrupted trade. Politicians involved in the elections scheduled for Nov. 29 also have been pushing for a resolution, and the Honduran people have grown weary of months of sometimes violent instability and repression of many civil rights.

Washington and most of the hemisphere’s capitals had warned the de facto government that they would not recognize the results of the upcoming elections if the crisis continued to fester. That was the message that Thomas Shannon, U.S. assistant secretary of State, drove home to the Hondurans during a two-day mission that ended late Thursday with the two sides reaching agreement.

Shannon told reporters that he had emphasized that time was running out, and that the two sides had realized “there was no more space to dither.”

“Both have indicated that they will abide by it, and I believe them,” he told reporters. “This is a political issue that’s going to be resolved politically.”

Members of Micheletti’s team confirmed that it was the threat to the legitimacy of the elections that ultimately persuaded the de facto leader to agree.

“We thought that sooner or later, everyone would have to recognize the elections, even without the return of Zelaya, but we realized it was going to be a very painful, costly process,” Martha Alvarado, deputy foreign minister and frequent spokesperson for the de facto government, said in a telephone interview from the capital, Tegucigalpa.

“There is no more bitter song than the nonrecognition of elections,” she said, “and that was enough to really worry us.”

Victor Meza, who was Zelaya’s interior minister and led the team negotiating on his behalf, said the last-minute U.S. intervention was crucial.

“The arrival of Mr. Shannon was key,” he said. “It made everyone return to the negotiating table. It reopened the dialogue.”

The Americans were capitalizing on efforts already made by President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and the Organization of American States. Arias and the OAS had laid the groundwork for a deal, but the main sticking point -- Zelaya’s reinstatement -- seemed insurmountable as the de facto government consistently balked.

Months of off-and-on talks, ultimatums and near-deals seemed to only deepen the polarization that was pushing the country toward an ever more violent denouement.

The Obama administration has been criticized in some quarters for failing to act more forcefully sooner. The administration cut some aid and yanked the visas of senior pro-coup leaders and businessmen, but at the same time said it was reluctant to appear overly “interventionist” in a region with a long history of U.S. meddling.

“They wanted the Latin Americans to resolve it, and there was a deliberate sense that we wanted to be multilateral players,” said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a U.S. think tank. “The big lesson for the Obama administration is that multilateralism isn’t letting the other guy do it but working with them constantly and on an engaged basis.”

In addition, the administration’s senior leadership for Latin America is awaiting congressional approval, which has left periods when no one was in charge of policy on Honduras.

At stake were the integrity of democracy in a region that only in recent decades emerged from civil wars and military rule and the well-being of some of Latin America’s poorest citizens. There have been numerous allegations of abuses by the de facto government, including arbitrary detentions and the use of excessive force by troops. It’s unclear how many people have been killed.

Talks were going nowhere last week, prompting Clinton to get on the phone to both Micheletti and Zelaya to insist in what was described as blunt language that they close the gap preventing an agreement. She then dispatched Shannon to Tegucigalpa, along with his deputy, Craig Kelly, and Dan Restrepo, the White House’s special assistant for Western Hemisphere affairs.

Among the coup backers, there were concerns over the elections and a growing realization that their scattering of allies in the U.S. Congress weren’t winning the battle for administration support, said State Department and U.S. congressional officials. The sanctions were starting to hurt, these officials said, and were being felt especially by big business. Another round of visa revocations, this time targeting families of de facto government officials, was also being threatened, a senior State Department official said.

In his meetings, Shannon emphasized that with just one month to go before the election, this was the Hondurans’ last chance, participants said.

“An agreement is the way out,” Shannon told the Hondurans, according to a senior Obama administration official. “If you don’t take it now, don’t come back to us later looking for help.”

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Special correspondent Alex Renderos in San Salvador contributed to this report.